Existing initiatives
The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy offers “Social Programs That Work,”
a Web site providing policymakers and practitioners with clear, actionable information on what works in social policy, as demonstrated in scientifically valid studies. Specifically, the Web site summarizes the findings from a select group of well designed randomized controlled trials (“gold standard” studies) that have particularly important policy implications—they show, for example, that a social program greatly affects life outcomes of participants or that a widely implemented social program has little or no effect. [www. evidencebasedprograms.org/].
The International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE),
a loose alliance of regional and national evaluation organizations from around the world, builds evaluation leadership and capacity in developing countries, fosters the cross-fertilization of evaluation theory and prac- tice around the world, addresses international challenges in evaluation, and assists the evaluation professionals to take a more global approach to identifying and solving problems. It offers links to other evaluation organizations; forums that network evaluators internationally; news of events and important initiatives; and opportunities to exchange ideas, practices, and insights with evaluation associations, societies, and net- works. [http://ioce.net].
Improving Lives through Impact Evaluation
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) fights poverty by
ensuring that policy decisions are based on scientific evidence. Located in the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ogy, J-PAL brings together a network of researchers at several universi- ties who work on randomized evaluations. It works with governments, aid agencies, bilateral donors, and NGOs to evaluate the effectiveness of antipoverty programs using randomized evaluations, disseminate findings and policy implications, and promote the use of randomized evaluations, including by training practitioners to carry them out. [www. povertyactionlab.com/].
The Campbell Collaboration, a nonprofit organization, helps people
make well informed decisions about the effects of social, behavioural, and educational interventions. Its objectives are to prepare, maintain, and disseminate systematic reviews of studies of interventions. It acquires and promotes access to information about trials of interventions. And it develops summaries and electronic brochures of reviews and reports of trials for policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and the public. [www. campbellcollaboration.org].
The DAC Network on Development Evaluation, bringing together repre-
sentatives from 30 bilateral and multilateral development agencies, works to improve evaluation for more effective development assistance. [www. oecd.org/site/0,2865,en_21571361_34047972_1_1_1_1_1,00.html].
Inter-American Development Bank’s EvalNet is a Latin American evalu-
ation network created by the Office of Evaluation and Oversight. EvalNet serves as a forum for practitioners and academics interested in evaluation of development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. [www.iadb. org/ove/Default.aspx?Action=WUCHtmlAndDocuments@EvalNet].
The International Program for Development Evaluation Training offers
online course modules aimed at increasing evaluation capacity among senior and midlevel audit and evaluation professionals working in developed and developing country governments, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, and NGOs. It offers a two-week core course covering development evaluation basics, followed by two weeks of 26 freestanding workshops on specific development evaluation topics. [www.ipdet.org/].
OECD-DAC Evaluation Abstracts Inventory provides summaries of evalu-
ations available throughout the international development donor community. Abstracts are provided along with the full text of the report if it is available. Evaluations can be retrieved by donor, country/region, sector, evaluation type, date, or keyword. The Web site is supported by the DAC Working Party on Aid Evaluation of the OECD and managed by the Canadian International Development Agency. [www.dac-evaluations-cad.org/].
The Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Initiative of the World Bank aims
to overcome pre-existing bottlenecks—insufficient resources, inadequate incentives, and, in some cases, lack of knowledge and understanding—that limit the Bank’s ability to conduct impact evaluations at the necessary scale and continuity. The DIME Initiative is a Bank-wide collaborative effort under the leadership of the Chief Economist. It is oriented at increasing the number of projects with impact evaluation components, particularly in strategic
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When Will We Ever Learn?
areas and themes, increasing the ability of staff to design and carry out such evaluations, and building a process of systematic learning on effec- tive development interventions based on lessons learned from completed evaluations. [http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/0,, contentMDK:20381417~menuPK:773951~pagePK:64165401~piPK: 64165026~theSitePK:469372,00.html].
Organizations with evaluation material
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) maintains a database of
abstracts and full reports of evaluations, studies, and surveys related to UNICEF programs. [www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/index_13364.html].
The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Central Evaluation
Database contains summaries of evaluation reports. [http://stone.undp. org/undpweb/eo/cedab/eotextform.cfm]. The Evaluation Plan Database provides information about the UNDP’s planned and ongoing evaluations. [http://www.undp.org/eo/database/evp/evp.html].
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Internal Oversight Service has links to UNESCO’s evaluation
reports. [www.unesco.org/ios/eng/ios_intermed5evnreports.htm].
The United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) Monitoring and Evalua-
tion Resources section includes full evaluation reports and findings of UNFPA-supported projects and programs. [www.unfpa.org/monitoring/ reports.htm].
The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humani- tarian Action’s (ALNAP) Evaluative Reports Database on evaluations of
humanitarian action is fully searchable, with key sections and summary information. [www.alnap.org/database.html].
The Development Assistance Committee Evaluation Group’s Evaluation
Inventory contains evaluation abstracts in English and French that various international development organizations have agreed to make available to the general public. [www.dac-evaluations-cad.org/].
The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Web site includes a database of full
reports since 1995 and a catalogue of online and print publications. [www.adb.org/Evaluation/reports.asp].
The Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Office of Evaluation and Over-
sight provides access to IDB reports on thematic and country evaluations and abstracts of evaluations. Many publications are available in Spanish. [www.iadb.org/ove/DefaultNoCache.aspx?Action=WUCPublications@ evaluations].
The World Bank Group’s Operations and Evaluation Department publishes
a variety of document series, sorted by type or available through its online database. [http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/OED/OEDDocLib.nsf/ OEDSearch?openform].
The Impact Evaluation Thematic Group (PovertyNet) Web site provides access to selected evaluations. [www.worldbank.org/poverty/impact/ practice/introevl.htm].
Improving Lives through Impact Evaluation
And the WBI Evaluation Group carries out evaluations of all training activities. [http://info.worldbank.org/etools/WBIEG/publications/index. cfm?pg=getPubs&category=Publications&Intro=yes&instructions=no& showDetails=no&ID].
The International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Evaluation Unit
offers evaluation reports, electronic resources, and links related to each of the IDRC’s three programming areas and the corporate level. The IDRC Library (www.idrc.ca/library/) provides public access to develop- ment information through two databases. The BIBLIO database provides information on the IDRC’s collection of research materials. [http://idrinfo. idrc.ca/scripts/minisa.dll/144/LIBRARY?DIRECTSEARCH].
The IDRIS database provides information on IDRC-funded develop- ment research activities. [http://idrinfo.idrc.ca/scripts/minisa.dll/144/ IDRIS?DIRECTSEARCH]. Some sections also available in French and Spanish.
The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) offers access to several
resources, including internal bibliographic resources and databases, and external databases, online resources, and organizations. [www.unicef-icdc. org/resources/].
The Australian Agency for International Development’s (AusAID)
Evaluation and Quality Assurance section includes access to its Lessons Learned Database. [http://akwa.ausaid.gov.au/akw.nsf/ 4f1db83b64c26548ca256cef0009afa0?OpenForm].
German Development Cooperation (BMZ) materials on evaluation can be
found in its Specialist Information section. [www.bmz.de/en/service/ infothek/fach/index.html].
The Danish International Development Agency (Danida) has a Web site
providing access to ongoing evaluations and information on its evalua- tion policy and programme. [www.um.dk/en/menu/DevelopmentPolicy/ Evaluations/].
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) provides a Web
site for searching its publications, including country reports, project evalu- ations, and strategy reports. [www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/].
Finnida’s abstracts of evaluations of country and sectoral programs s are
available online. [www.jica.go.jp/english/evaluation/report/index.html].
The Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) Web site contains
online publications, including full evaluation reports, up to 2002. [www. jica.go.jp/english/evaluation/report/index.html].
The Swedish International Development Agency’s (Sida) evaluation Web
site includes access to full reports of evaluation series and studies in evaluation. [www.sida.se/Sida/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2269&a=17840].
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has
launched an initiative to revitalize its evaluation work; its Web site includes links to impact evaluation reports. An annotated bibliography of impact evaluations conducted by USAID is available on request. [www.dec. org/partners/evalweb/evaluations/index.cfm].
When Will We Ever Learn?